The Second Edict by Those of Zurich, in the Year 1530

There has existed, writes a certain author, in the Zwinglian churches, from their beginning, a great hatred and bitterness against the Anabaptists, or more properly speaking, against those baptized according to the ordinance of Christ, as history certifies; and by it they began very early to tyrannize over them; for we believe the Zwinglian church was not yet ten years old when this abuse occurred. Yet it did not stop here, but they went on, the longer the worse, in this tyranny; so that those of Zurich, in the year 1530, issued an edict very much like the bloody decrees of the Roman Emperor, in which they write as follows

"Therefore we strictly command all the inhabitants of our country, and those who are in any way united with them, particularly high and low magistrates, bailiffs, constables, judges, elders of churches, and ecclesiastical officers, that, if they hear of any Anabaptists, they give us information about them, by virtue of the oath by which they are bound to us; that they nowhere tolerate them, or allow them to multiply; but that they arrest them, and deliver them to us; for we shall punish with death, according to the terms of our laws, the Anabaptists with all those who favor them or hold to them; and we shall also punish without mercy, as they deserve, as having violated the faith and oath which they swore to their authorities," those who assist, and do not report, drive away, or bring as prisoners to us, all such persons.

This we have taken word for word from the edict, as Bullinger (contra, and so on) has cited it. Compare the note in the preface to the Oferboeck der Doopsgesinde, in the year 1615, letter Y, with P. J. Twisck's Chron., page 1031, column 1, from different authors.